Abstract.A hierarchy of parametrizations of the neutral 10 m drag coefficients over polar sea ice with different morphology regimes is derived on the basis of a partitioning concept that splits the total surface drag into contributions of skin drag and form drag. The new derivation, which provides drag coefficients as a function of sea ice concentration and characteristic length scales of roughness elements, needs fewer assumptions than previous similar approaches. It is shown that form drag variability can explain the variability of surface drag in the marginal sea ice zone (MIZ) and in the summertime inner Arctic regions. In the MIZ, form drag is generated by floe edges;in the inner Arctic, by edges at melt ponds and leads due to the elevation of the ice surface relative to the open water surface. It is shown that an earlier fit of observed neutral drag coefficients is obtained as a special case within the new concept when specific simplifications are made which concern the floe and melt pond geometry. Due to the different surface morphologies in the MIZ and summertime Arctic, different functional dependencies of the drag coefficients on the sea ice concentration result. These differences cause only minor differences between the MIZ and summertime drag coefficients in average conditions, but they might be locally important for atmospheric momentum transport to sea ice. The new parametrization formulae can be used for present conditions but also for future climate scenarios with changing sea ice conditions.

No abstract

No abstract

Clouds play an important role in Arctic amplification. This term represents the recently observed enhanced warming of the Arctic relative to the global increase of near-surface air temperature. However, there are still important knowledge gaps regarding the interplay between Arctic clouds and aerosol particles, and surface properties, as well as turbulent and radiative fluxes that inhibit accurate model simulations of clouds in the Arctic climate system. In an attempt to resolve this so-called Arctic cloud puzzle, two comprehensive and closely coordinated field studies were conducted: the Arctic Cloud Observations Using Airborne Measurements during Polar Day (ACLOUD) aircraft campaign and the Physical Feedbacks of Arctic Boundary Layer, Sea Ice, Cloud and Aerosol (PASCAL) ice breaker expedition. Both observational studies were performed in the framework of the German Arctic Amplification: Climate Relevant Atmospheric and Surface Processes, and Feedback Mechanisms (AC) project. They took place in the vicinity of Svalbard, Norway, in May and June 2017. ACLOUD and PASCAL explored four pieces of the Arctic cloud puzzle: cloud properties, aerosol impact on clouds, atmospheric radiation, and turbulent dynamical processes. The two instrumented Polar 5 and Polar 6 aircraft; the icebreaker Research Vessel (R/V) Polarstern; an ice floe camp including an instrumented tethered balloon; and the permanent ground-based measurement station at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, were employed to observe Arctic low- and mid-level mixed-phase clouds and to investigate related atmospheric and surface processes. The Polar 5 aircraft served as a remote sensing observatory examining the clouds from above by downward-looking sensors; the Polar 6 aircraft operated as a flying in situ measurement laboratory sampling inside and below the clouds. Most of the collocated Polar 5/6 flights were conducted either above the R/V Polarstern or over the Ny-Ålesund station, both of which monitored the clouds from below using similar but upward-looking remote sensing techniques as the Polar 5 aircraft. Several of the flights were carried out underneath collocated satellite tracks. The paper motivates the scientific objectives of the ACLOUD/PASCAL observations and describes the measured quantities, retrieved parameters, and the applied complementary instrumentation. Furthermore, it discusses selected measurement results and poses critical research questions to be answered in future papers analyzing the data from the two field campaigns.

The Millionshchikov hypothesis of quasi-normal distribution of fourth-order moments fails for convective conditions where the probability density functions of temperature and vertical velocity fluctuations are skewed. This is shown for aircraft and large-eddy simulation (LES) data, and new closures for fourth-order moments that take the skewness into account are suggested. These new closures are in very good agreement with the data.